1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic transaction apparatus and automatic transaction system which execute screen control and automatic transaction operations according to the screen content from the Web server, and more particularly to an automatic transaction apparatus and automatic transaction system which operates by the screen content, where the screen information and apparatus control information related to the screen are embedded.
2. Description of the Related Art
Automatic transaction apparatuss are used for various transactions, and in the financial field, for example, automatic withdrawal machines and automatic deposit/withdrawal machines are used, and in other fields, automatic ticket machines and automatic issuing machines are used. In such automatic transaction apparatuss, automatic transaction apparatuss for depositing/withdrawing, issuing tickets and outputting various information using Web technology are provided as such networks as the Internet currently develop.
FIG. 21 is a block diagram of a conventional automatic transaction system, and shows an ATM (Automatic Teller Machine) for financial operations. As FIG. 21 shows, the WWW (World Wide Web) server 300 and the automatic cash transaction apparatus 400 are connected via a network.
According to the request of the automatic transaction apparatus (ATM) 400, which is a client, the server 300 transmits the Web page (screen content) 500 to the ATM 400. This Web page is created with a program for creating a screen to be displayed on the display device using a page description language (HTML, JAVA (registered trademark) script), and relating to the display content of this one page (one screen), the control program of another device (e.g. card processing device, cash processing device, pass book processing device, itemized slip processing device), for which drive is controlled, is embedded as an object.
For example, as FIG. 21 shows, the Web page 500 is comprised of a screen creation program, applet tag for specifying an object (applet), screen content 502 for specifying the execution method (method) by script, and applet 510 which sets the program for executing the method of the object (applet), using the page description language HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language.
This Web page 500 is downloaded from the WWW server 300 to the browser 410 of the ATM 400. In the ATM 400, on the other hand, the ATM middleware operates under the control of a kernel (OS), and performs I/O operations (transaction operations). The ATM 400 has a card reader/writer unit 440, receipt/journal printer 441, bill/coin processing unit 442, passbook processing unit 443 and customer operation panel as the I/O mechanical units.
According to the screen creation program of the Web page, the browser 410 displays the screen on the customer operation panel, analyzes the applet tag of the screen content 502 and the method name, executes the corresponding program of the applet 510, and issues commands to the I/O units 440-443.
In such ATM control by a Web browser, it is proposed to specify the operation method (initialization in this example) of each device using the script (Java script) of the screen content 502 by specifying the device interface sorting section (machine ID) as an embedded object (applet) of the screen content 502 for each device (e.g. cash processing device) as shown in FIG. 21 and FIG. 22 (e.g. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-298752).
In this method, the device interface sorting section 420 is specified by the applet tag of the screen content 502, and the device sorting section 420 sequentially reads the script, decodes it, sorts it to the interface sections 430-433 which handles the operation instructions, and operates the corresponding I/O units 440-443.
This example shows the case of the device initialization operation command, so as FIG. 23 shows, the Initialize (“cash”) Script in the screen content is read, the initialization command is sent to the controller of the cash processing device 442, the initialization completion reply is received, then the Initialize (“card”) Script is read, the initialization command is sent to the controller of the card processing device 440, and the initialization completion reply is received. Hereafter Initialize ( ) Script is sequentially read, the initialization command is sent to the controller of the corresponding processing device, the initialization completion reply is received, and processing ends.
In this proposal, when ATMs with the same functions are controlled via the Web, a plurality of units can be operated by one applet tag of the screen content, the description of the HTML of the screen content can be short, and the embedded object can be simple.
However ATMs do not always have the same function, for there are many ATMs which have different functions. For example, cash processing functions are processing bills and coins or processing only bills, or some ATMs execute pass book processing while others do not, or some ATMs execute deposit/withdrawal processing and other execute only withdrawal.
In order to Web-control such ATMs with different functions, the script itself of the screen content must be changed considerably, even with a same applet tag, according to the constituting functions and units, since the method to be called up is for each unit in the case of the prior art. In other words, the description of the screen content must be designed according to the differences of the constituting functions and units of the ATM to be controlled.
Therefore it takes enormous effort to develop a Web page on a WWW server 300, and it takes time to add new functions (e.g. link function with a portable telephone).
In the prior art, a method is called up for each unit, so the script of the screen content must be created for each unit. Therefore, as the above example of initialization shown in FIG. 23 shows, the command is issued and the reply is received for each script in order to control the synchronization of the plurality of units, therefore the synchronization control takes time, and the time for a user to use the automatic transaction apparatus becomes lengthy, which drops the operation rate, and increases the reply wait time.